this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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So we can achieve 3.95C instead of 4C. Big difference that'll make...
Well, we can achieve much better than either of those two if there's political will. But given 3.95C or 4C I know which I'd pick, and aren't many western conveniences I wouldn't trade for even that small improvement.
Yes, because those 0.05K might be the difference between certain disasters occurring or not. Certain disasters are so bad that we lose control over temperature because of something feedback loops.
We are already in feedback loop territory. The fact this is missed by so many people used to fill me with dread, but I've since learned to (cope by) accept reality. You can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink.
It is important to note that high temperature increase will accelerate when feedback loops kick into action. Tim Lenton says that the right metaphor is not a chair falling over, as in, once we hit temperature X, then we doomed. If the chair falling over is used, then metaphorically it is falling through honey, the higher the temperature, the faster the fall and less time for finding solutions. Key takeaway: Never give up, always try to reduce emissions as they all have an impact on how much time we have.
The feedback loop is already in action, that's the point they were trying to make. Polar ice caps are already in a runaway melt loop. We will not save them.
There is no situation in which we get climate change under control to a point where the entire earth's ecosphere doesn't change drastically in the next 100 years. That ship sailed ages ago. We can try to staunch the bleeding, and I think we should in any way that we can, but there is no realistic future in which we "recover" from this.
We'd be lucky to limit it that much. Instead we have decided slowing down fossil fuel extraction would hurt profits and we can't have that.